Education, From The Capitol To The Classroom

Stories about students: How does education policy affect the way students learn and grow? Can schools meet their needs as they balance ramped-up testing with personal changes and busy schedules? And are students who need help getting it?

Stories about educators: How are those responsible for implementing education policy in schools − from classroom teachers, to district administrators, to school board members − affected by changes at the top? And how well do they meet their challenge of reaching students with varying abilities and needs?

Stories about school assessment: With an increased push for 'accountability' in schools, what can test scores tell us about teacher effectiveness and student learning − and what can't they tell us? What does the data say about how schools at all levels are performing?

Stories about government influence: Who are the people and groups most instrumental in crafting education policy? What are their priorities and agendas? And how do they work together when they disagree?

Stories about money: How do local, state, and federal governments pay to support the education policies they craft? How do direct costs of going to school − from textbooks to tuition − hit a parent or student's bottom line? And how do changing budgets and funding formulas affect learning and teaching?

Here's What To Listen For During Wednesday's Presidential Debate

October 3, 2012 | 11:58 AM

Members of the media prepare television sets at a dress rehearsal for Wednesday night's presidential debate at the University of Denver.

Emily Richmond has a list of buzzwords on the The Educated Reporter blog we might listen for during the first presidential debate in Denver tonight. It’s inevitable that education will come up, she writes, but don’t count on a long discussion:

That’s not because the candidates don’t have anything to say on the issue, or that they don’t differ in their approaches.

At the National Press Club on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was asked what the biggest difference might be between a second-term Obama administration and a Romney presidency. Duncan summed it up thusly: Obama believes education is an investment, while Romney sees it as an expense.

That’s an oversimplification, but it certainly crystallizes the Democrats’ dire predictions of the slash-and-burn budget cuts to key programs that serve at-risk students if Romney were elected. And Romney has been decidedly light on specifics about the central planks of his education platform, although he made it clear at NBC’s Education Nation last week that using federal dollars to fund the new Common Core State Standards wouldn’t be one of them.

We’d be lying over here at StateImpact if we said the idea of playing presidential debate bingo didn’t make us chuckle. But Richmond’s list of education buzzwords gets at how important policy created now will be in the future.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be ramping up our coverage of the state superintendent race between Tony Bennett and Glenda Ritz. We’ll be following what gubernatorial candidates Mike Pence and John Gregg have to say about education in Indiana. And we’ll also be taking cues from you.

What questions do you want answered? What topics do you think we should be covering? You can reach out to us on Twitter or leave us a comment below. (We’re really easy people to get ahold of, we promise.)